Debt collecting might not be an obvious career choice for genteel ladies but by 1915 the old social order was on the way out as women took to the streets demanding equality and the vote. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst established the Women’s Social and Political Union at her home in Nelson Street, Manchester and at Oxford House, 57 Victoria Road, Swindon three sisters established their own financial business. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales set up in 1880, discussed admitting females in 1895. However it would be 1919 before the first woman became a member. Rosa, Mabel and Florence Clarke were three of William Clarke’s four daughters. At the time of the 1881 census the family lived at 17 Wellington Street. William worked as an Iron Turner in the GWR Works, but he was an ambitious, intelligent and determined young man. Ten years later William had moved his family up the social ladder and up the hill to a house in Victoria Road where he ...